How to Guide Students Through Study.com's Courses

In this video, you'll learn how to help your students complete Study.com courses by walking them through the site, setting milestones, teaching them about the CLEP, and how to take the exam.

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In order to set a student up for success, we recommend having students take just one course at a time and set milestones for themselves. This video will help you guide a student through the learning process from start to finish.

Get Started

First, you'll want to introduce your students to Study.com. You'll want to give them a walkthrough of the site navigation and reassure them that you will be there for support along the way.

Let's head to the classroom to see how Susan sets Tony up to start his first course.

Susan: Alright, let's walk through the process of how to take an Study.com course. It's pretty simple, click on your course and it will take you to the page to find your first lesson. As you watch the lesson, you can take notes on key words and definitions. Once you finish the lesson, click on the quiz tab and test your knowledge. If you ever need to go back and review the material, you can do so at any time. Each lesson is accompanied by a written transcript that you can read along with or print out and there is a timeline under each video that allows you to jump to different parts of the lesson. So if you are taking the quiz and you miss an answer, you can easily click to go back and re-watch that section and try again. Continue through the course repeating this process until you have watched all of the videos. Do you feel like you're ready to get started?

Tony: Yeah, I think it's pretty straightforward.

Susan: Great!

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Set a Goal & Milestones

Our courses are completely self-paced and don't have any deadlines or due dates. While this adds flexibility, it can make it hard for some students to complete the course. Here are some tips for helping students stay motivated to complete their studies.

There are a few basic variables you will need to look at:

How many hours per week the student will dedicate to the course

How many lessons are in the course

The approximate number of hours of video

By doing some basic math, come up with a plan of action to set a concrete deadline.

Let's head to the classroom to see how Susan helps Tony set a goal for completing his first course.

Susan: Okay, now that you've decided that you want to start with Marketing, let's set a goal for when you will finish the course. It always helps to have a time frame to work with. First, let's figure out how many hours you will need to spend watching videos. Let's start by seeing how many there are.

Tony: It looks like there are 82 videos.

Susan: Great, now we need to take into account that each video is, on average, 8 minutes in length. So if we multiply 82 videos by 8 minutes, we get 656 minutes, which comes out to about 11 hours. So that's 11 hours that you will spend just watching the videos. We also need to take into consideration the time you will spend taking notes, the quizzes and reviewing the material. You can print out the video transcripts for some of the more difficult topics and review any notes you've taken. Let's double the 11 hours, just to be on the safe side.

Tony: Okay, so that means it will take me 22 hours to complete the course?

Susan: That's right! Now, let's figure out how much time you can devote to the course on a weekly basis.

Tony: Well, I'll work on it for an hour each day during class time. And maybe an extra hour per week in my free time.

Susan: Great, so six hours per week for the next four weeks would be 24 hours spent studying, so that should give you plenty of time to complete the course. Does completing the course in one month seem like a reasonable goal to you?

Tony: Yeah, I think so.

Susan: If you have any questions I'm always here to help, otherwise we'll check in in two weeks to see how you're doing.

Tony: Sounds good.

Two Weeks Later

Tony: I like the course, but I'm afraid I might not be able to finish in a month like we talked about.

Susan: Okay, well have you been tracking your progress?

Tony: Sort of. I've been watching about two or three videos per day.

Susan: Alright, I have an idea. Why don't you set a weekly goal and keep a daily count of the number of videos you watched? If you fall short one day, you can always make it up the next.

Tony: Okay, so if I have 50 videos left in the course and two weeks to finish watching them if I want to meet my goal, how many will I need to watch per day?

Susan: Well, that would come out to 25 videos per week for the next two weeks, so 5 videos per day.

Tony: Well, looks like I have my work cut out for me!

Susan: Here's a calendar you can take with you to track your progress.

Tony: Thanks!

Check ins are a great way to keep track of your students' progress because they may not always have the confidence to ask for help. In addition, setting small incremental goals will give the student a sense of accomplishment as they are working towards completing the course.

Course Completion & Take the CLEP

It's time to check in with your student one last time and see if they've completed the course and how they did on their final exam. If they've completed it and received a sufficient score then the next step is to help them register for the CLEP.

Let's head back to the classroom to see how Tony did.

Susan: So it's been exactly one month since we set your goal to complete the Marketing course. How did you do?

Tony: I finished the course and passed the final exam with a 85%!

Susan: Great job! Since you got an 85% on the final exam, I think you're ready to take the CLEP. Let's work together to get you registered. Meanwhile, why don't you focus on reviewing the concepts that you struggled with so you feel more confident going into the exam. You can always go back to specific lessons and use the quizzes as a way to test your knowledge. Once you feel like you're ready to take the CLEP, we'll sign you up and you'll be on your way to earning college credit!

Conclusion

The support you provide your student along the way is key to their success and will give them the confidence to tackle more courses. Study.com's classes are meant to be flexible and self-paced, with that in mind remember to set up frequent check ins and work with the student to create a schedule that fits their needs. Whether they are working towards a few college credits or a degree, they should now be equipped with a framework to achieve their future education goals.